yeah just snip out any small flowers or just-forming fruits - leave the leaves and vines intact, they only add available energy from photosynthesis I would snip the large ones fruits you have to one to two per vine.

Manual ways of reducing melon rinds and such involve a heavy knife, or, if you want to take out your aggression on the fruit, a machete. My mother had a manual meat grinder when I was a kid, and I've seen vegetable slicers of the same sort. If one of those can reduce carrots to slivers, it would do the same for melon rinds. Paper can be hand-shredded or you can use a paper cutter to cut it into strips and then cut the strips crosswise. Either way, it's a lot of work, and I don't know if most people are willing to put that much effort into it. Generally, if something requires a little personal effort and a little electricity, it's more likely to get done than if it requires a lot of manual effort and time and no electricity. If that were not the case, "labor-saving" electrical devices would never have become popular. To be completely honest, I do have a powerful blender with a container dedicated to compost. I tend to use it when I'm cleaning out the fridge and getting rid of all the leftovers that are growing green fuzzy things. I'll usually wind up with a bucket full of nasty slurry, which then gets dumped into the compost pile and covered with shredded leaves or wood chips. My blender can handle meat and bones as well as veggies, enabling me to compost things that are usually on the "do not compost" list by breaking them down into tiny particles which rot quickly before attracting flies. Most of the time, however, I just dump things into the compost without shredding. I think that the energy used in shredding is offset by the energy used in manufacturing a black plastic bag, using a big smoke-belching diesel truck to take the bag to the landfill (or the incinerator), and then using a big smoke-belching diesel bulldozer to bury the bag in the landfill (or using more fuel to burn it); either way the organic material will be lost to the ecosystem., and in the case of the incinerator, which is where my trash would go, the carbon is emitted as CO2. IMO, it's much better to have it in the garden nurturing the roses, no matter how it got there.

I guess I just think of places like PA and NJ, and how they are farther south, and yet still zone 6. But admittedly I always forget to think of proximity to the water, and that would change things, so being on the island would make a difference. I googled, though, and found this. Who knows? I think you can find three different maps with three different results, lol. Not trying to be argumentative with anyone. I was just really somewhat taken aback when I saw Brooklyn zone 7. Sounds so tropical, lol. :) Dee P.S. Also interesting to see Suffolk county being zone 6. Must be elevation, I guess, but it is funny to me to see the north shore as zone 7 and the middle of the island as zone 6! Here is a link that might be useful: Cornell NY hardiness map

I use a brass screw hook . I mounted it just outside the edge of the window frame (because there's wood behind that spot holding the window in, so it's not going into drywall). I pre-drilled a hole with a drill bit smaller than the screw diameter, then just gently twisted it in. It holds the tassel just fine (and mine are large).